Harsh Lessons (6 page)

I guess Dojo has other things to do besides training me.  But still… only
three hours
a day?
  And she wasn't sure what “Political Science” was,
but it sounded boring.

Weapons sounded fun; and “*” meant the instructor would vary.  But two hours of General Studies each day, on her own?  It'd be like being back at the Institute.  Though the auto-teacher software looked kind of interesting: better than the quizzes she was used to. 
But why were Saturdays and Sundays mostly empty?

Sighing, she
put the timetable down. 
Tired, excited,
and a little hungry, too. 
Flipping herself up off the bed she considered what to do now, stretching and feeling the aches and strains, replaying some of Dojo's moves and re-
trying a few herself.  Dojo was
amazing
.

But she should go to sleep soon, to make sure she'd be fresh in the morning, for her next session with him.

Today, all her clothes had been delivered from the Institute, so she’d finally have something nice to wear for him
. 
I wonder what Faith’s doing tonight?
  The thought made her blink, rapidly.  Normally, they'd have finished their patrol
by now.
 
U
nless she'd managed to sneak out so they could have an extra loping run through the night-time woods.  She missed
Faith: missed cuddling her, wrestling her; missed
her doggy-electric smells.  And
those dopey, wolfish grins.

She wiped at her eyes with her knuckles. 
One day I'll go back
.

And what about poor Godsson? 
She wondered if anyone here kne
w about him?  Surely they would, since they all worked for Eagle?  Maybe she'd ask Emma.

Emma was nice.
 
And somehow managed to look classy and sexy and elegant even though she dressed in really
covering
clothes. 
She liked Emma best of everyone here; but James, the other male agent she'd met briefly today, was
cute.
 
Much nicer than grumpy old
Preacher
.  She'd be eighteen, soon.  She wondered if they'd told
James she wasn’t quite eighteen yet: would
he
say she was “too young?”  She giggled: something told her she'd be finding out soon.

Preacher, though, seemed… mean. 
Grubby
.  And he sneered a lot, and his eyes looked kind of hungry. 
He'd be teaching her Street Culture.

The creepiest one of all, though, was “Checkbook.”  She didn't understand him
at all
.  He hadn't smiled once while he'd been explaining to her about “purchase orders” and “justifying expenses.”  She had
no
idea what he thought of her.  If she hadn't heard his heart beating, by listening in her special way, she could have believed he was some kind of super-smart android.

She shuddered.

“
Father” was nice, if a bit gruff.  Really old – older than Keepie! – but very fit-looking.  Very erect
and unbending
. 
I wonder if I'll be able to make
him
bend a bit?

Plus the two younger men, only one of whom she’d met.
 
She guessed there was something odd about the one they hadn’t introduced her to yet:
Nelson. 
When Mother and Father had been describing her colleagues to her, they'd exchanged weird looks about
him
.  Nelson was their “information specialist,” they'd said; “talented” with electronics. 
And then they’d stopped, each of them looking kind of constipated.

From his picture, Nelson looked a bit… pasty.  But intelligent, and maybe excitable.

She'd examined his picture, hmm-ing while wondering whether she could convince him to exercise with her: build him up a little.  He didn't seem that much older than her, so he
should
be fun.  But when she'd looked up, Mother had been staring at her chest in disapproval, like there was something wrong with her nipples, and Father was easing back in his chair with his eyes narrowed and sucking in a long breath.

'What?' she'd demanded. But he’d simply shaken his head, and Mother's dark magenta lips had clamped tightly shut.

The one she
had
met, briefly, was called “Little Brother” – which was a pretty lame
code-name. 
He was a general assistant, earnest-looking
in a wishy-washy sort of way. 
It'd been him who'd brought her and Uncle inside the Department when they'd first arrived….

When she and Uncle had been offered their chance to work for the Government, back in Eagle’s office, a door had slid open and two matte black drones had appeared, buzzing powerfully, escorting them down into
a maze of tunnels. 
She'd tried to remove the special hood and cuffs from her uncle,
but they were sealed snugly shut, with no obvious unlocking mechanism.  She'd gotten frustrated, then angry, hurrying sideways through passages trying to keep up with the watching drones.  In the end, with the
slicey
feeling tingling through her fingertips, she'd slashed his bonds
free.  Deadly-looking tubes
had sprung from the hovering black bots, and for a full minute no one had moved.

But in the end, when neither she nor Uncle had done anything else, the drones had bracketed them again. 
One had pincered up the pieces of her uncle's restraints, while the other had begun humming much more loudly, making aggressive little darting motions to herd them on
. 
It'd made her want to punch it.

They'd led them on through more automatic doors, tunnels, and stairs – mostly down – and finally along a cold, damp stretch of passageway cut through stone and smelling of earth.

The drones had paused at a metal wall at the end, where a door had opened
onto a bare concrete room. 
Inside, four sleek black arthrobots the size of dogs had faced them, bulging with energy pods and weapons
.  Behind them, an apologetic young man introduced himself as “Little Brother.” 
He'd blushed as he'd urged them not to upset the anti-personnel bots.

His eyes had lit up when the flying drone had dropped the sliced-up hood and cuffs into his hands
. 
It had been like she and her uncle had vanished, as far as he was concerned. After examining their damage, he finally seemed to
remember they were there. 
He looked at her with such fascination she'd felt somehow embarrassed.

But he'd just welcomed them to the Accounts Department's “back entrance” and then led them inside to a first meeting with Mother and Father.  One at a time.

Finally, Father had handed her her timetable, and
she'd studied it for a minute. 
'Why aren't there any actual
spy
lessons?'

Mother had pursed her lips.  Mother pursed her lips
a lot
, actually
– almost every time she'd asked her something, in fact.  Like Mother thought she was just a child.

'Oh, you mean the bomb defusing courses, do you?  And jet piloting? 
The nerve pinches, no doubt; and how to guess passwords in three tries?'

Leeth had nodded, excited,
only realizing Mother had been making fun of her by Father's reaction. 
She felt her face heat, just at the memory.

Standing up, she crossed to her dressing table, taking up the old padlock she'd found all those years ago
at the Institute.  She smiled, remembering her
eight-year-old self's plan to learn to pick locks, to recover the evidence of her sneaking around in the ceiling spaces.
 
Except she never had worked out how to pick it
. 
At least here, I'm sure to be taught how to do that.

She put it back down, still smiling, then lifted the heavy wooden block she'd started carving, mainly just to enjoy the
sharp
feeling always waiting at her fingertips.

She turned it
over.  She wasn't sure what it was going to be, yet.  Something with swooping lines.  Maybe a dolphin. 
Something simple; her invisible claws seemed better at killing things than cutting things.

But she didn't feel like practicing her control right now; practicing how to keep the… desire to
cut
, shiver
ing at her fingertips.  She put the
hardwood back down beside her deadly black PowerShot, and started pacing her room, feeling cooped up
all of a sudden.  She wanted out.

She poured herself a glass of filtered, chilled water.  Gulping it down, her stomach growled.  There was a food dispenser in the Recreation Room.  And she was a member of the Department now.  So they could hardly object if she looked around.

Oh! 
I can go exploring!

They'd already explained that only doors she was allowed to go through would open for her.

So I'm totally
allowed
to explore! 
I wonder how hard it'll be to sneak past
their
security? 
She chewed her lip. 
Probably even worse than Jax's upgrades at the Institute, that'd ruined
years
of work.

But that thought only depressed her: made her remember Jax's betra
yal.  Of her, and Uncle. 
Getting them arrested.

She missed Faith.
 
Who was still back there, missing
her
. 
Which made her think about Godsson again and the problem of how to
convince people they really ought to let him go?  That was
gonna
be tough.  Everyone thought he was mad.  Which he was; kind
of
. 
Just not
that
mad.  He wouldn't hurt people. 
At least, not good people.

She sighed, putting the memories of the Institute behind her as she
cracked open her door.  B
ut the moment she stepped from her room, an arrow with a red question-mark appeared beneath a dark tree in the night-time forest scene
on the wall opposite her door.  She sighed. 
Yeah, things here work at a whole ’nother level.

'I don't want any stupid help!' she told the stupid arrow.

It hung there; paled to pink; then started flashing.

'No!  I don't want directions.'

The pink shape brightened to a golden glow, then morphed into a picture of Sleena, the pixie gladiator in Sub-world, and she smiled.

But when Sleena's sword, Dragon Fang, twisted into a question mark, Leeth
flushed. 
How did they know I liked Sleena?  When I was a child
, she amended.

'No directions!  Go away!'

With a sad expression that made her feel guilty, the false Sleena faded
out. 
It left just the moonlit woodland scene illuminating
the corridor, and Leeth feeling somehow mean. 
She wished she could go
up
, aboveground. 
O
ut into a real forest. 
To run, dodging and weaving through real trees, under real moonlight.

Clenching her fists, she stalked off in the direction of the Rec room.  Which wasn't too hard to find; from memory, and
from the smell of chlorine seeping from the large indoor pool in the room next to it.

The Rec room
seemed strangely empty and lonely.  She wandered by the large “
billiards” table with its
green felt inlay. 
Trailing her fingertips over the smoothly-polished wood grain, her gaze skipped from the couch, to the kitchen and its specialized appliances, to the wall of physical books and the weird wooden “games” below them.
  She'd been hoping someone else would be awake to talk to, she
realized.

She set the wall to transparent, and stood looking at the pool, glowing dark and mysterious and beautiful with
just the underwater lights.  She sighed,
feeling tired, all at once
. 
Something to eat, then a swim before bedtime.
 
Moving to the food dispenser, a section of pre-packaged “snacks” caught her eye.

Black Magic Bars.